Wild Geese
by leeleepupu
Summary: ONE-SHOT. Caroline visits Klaus in New Orleans after a few decades. She has a confession to make. "After so many years," he whispered. "Time is but a social convention," She smirked softly. DISCLAIMER: Only Story is Mine.
Caroline breathed in deeply. She could smell freshly cut vegetables and the sound of baked bread being broken; there was a small child being chided by his mother for his clumsy behaviour; across the street from the kid, an old lady was leaning from her balcony, watering the chrysanthemum, jasmine and petunia. It was fresh crisp air and Caroline walked down the street, happy to be a part of it. She took of her jacket and folded it neatly to be placed in her handbag. She had left her luggage in the hotel.

She knew where to go to find him. She had made a detailed itinerary of all of the things to do before she came here and on the top of the list was to see him. She knew his home address but wasn't sure if it would be acceptable for her to go see him there. But she did not have his cell number and hence had no recourse but to walk to his home. She walked slowly to the way she knew his house laid. And when she reached that haunt, she could not get herself to cross the road. It was suddenly too real, and not real at the same time for her.

"Caroline?" Someone said from behind her and Caroline froze. It was Klaus. She wanted to smile, to give him a cheerful greeting but all she could do was stare at him, in horror, in awe. She hadn't really been prepared to see him. The actual meeting was too transcendental for her to actually allow it or bear it, rather, to _see_ it actually occur on a material plane. She felt his warm hand touch her shoulder.

"Caroline? Is everything okay? Is something the matter?" he seemed worried.

Caroline snapped out of her stupor. Why would he think something was the matter? And even if something was the matter, why did he presume Caroline wouldn't be able to handle it on her own? Caroline smiled. "Klaus. Yes, yes. Everything's fine. I just, didn't think I'd see you here–"

She stopped midway when Klaus gave her a confused smile, gesturing to his house and the very obvious fact that she was standing in front of it. Caroline laughed. "Well, yes, not a bright one, clearly. What I meant was that I didn't think I'd see you so suddenly and abruptly. I didn't think you'd even be home."

"Well, technically, I wasn't," his eyebrows crinkled.

"I was in town," Caroline explained. "I thought I would visit you. I hope that's okay."

"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?" Klaus asked, smiling easily, like he always did for her. Caroline could not recall the anger and hate she had for him years ago. She could not understand how she was able to hold up against a smile like that so warm and reassuring.

"Would you care to come inside?"

"Yes, sure," Caroline said but immediately halted, "Actually, do you mind going to a cafe or something nearby?"

Klaus paused for a moment to consider her response and nodded his assent. "I think I might know a place you would like. Have you tried the beignets?"

"No, unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to."

"You're in for a treat, then," Klaus said, smiling. Caroline mused they would look like someone on a date, or someone just hanging out – essentially, someone so human and normal, even she would be convinced of their mortality. She smiled.

"Lead the way," she said.

"It's quite a walk from here. And we have to do it at the human speed – with tourists and everyone nearby. Do you need to be somewhere?"

"No. Let's walk. I haven't walked in such a long time. Haven't really looked while walking. You know, at college I met a girl who told me that when she was young her best friend had told her to avoid looking men in the eye, to stare at the ground. And from then on, whenever she walked, it became a habit to stare at the ground. At the age of twenty, she could only tell pavements apart, but never the skies. I think I'm becoming like that. With the constant work and everything, I haven't really ventured out and seen much."

Caroline spoke like a mortal and it was bizarre for Klaus. He couldn't understand her dilemma. Everything was for forever; _she_ was for forever; why was she so worried about not experiencing things?

"I'm not sure I understand love," he said, wrinkling his eyebrows.

Caroline noticed how his hands brushed her shoulders to steer her in the right direction. She liked the comfort and the familiarity. There was something so tender in the gesture that she almost forgot to answer Klaus's question. They had stopped at the zebra crossing, waiting for the light to go green.

"I know, I know. I have like an eternity, but things don't. I might stay the same on the outside, but things change and they move fast. They are animate and alive and then die. But I will remain the same," Caroline fell quiet. She looked pensive. "But I just really want to see everything you know. So, I can compare. For myself."

"I keep an on-line blog. To track changes. It's popular. I have, like, a thousand followers," Caroline chuckled.

"Anyway, now that I am out with you, I don't need to worry about missing out on things. So, tell me about the things I am seeing."

"Well," Klaus began, "this is called a zebra crossing." The light went green and Klaus's palm wound around Caroline's wrist, "Us pedestrians often use it to make sure we cross the road safely."

Caroline snorted. "Well, that's definitely not making it onto the blog."

When they reached the other of the street, Caroline walked on confidently towards the right where the street turned but Klaus pulled her back. "Nah-ah, not there," he said, as if speaking to a child, in an avuncular way. That prompted a painful reminder in Caroline. She certainly couldn't not speak to him about that, she told herself. Klaus opened the door of a café Caroline seemed to have missed and nudged her inside gently. The café was quaint and empty. "Pick a table while I order us some beignets. Do you need anything else?"

"A coffee would be great, thank you," Caroline said, searching already for a seat.

"Well, they'll bring us our order soon."

"Well, I've been speaking for too long. What have you been up to?"

Klaus shrugged. "Not much. Things here have been busier than I have anticipated but you've come at the right time. Everything's settled now."

Caroline smiled. She stared at the spoons and forks on the table. She arranged them according to height. "I heard you have a daughter. With Hayley." She looked up at Klaus. She didn't want to make it sound accusatory but she couldn't help it. She was accusing him. Kind of sort of. But also she wasn't. She wasn't entirely sure.

Klaus's face turned serious. "Caroline I –"

"No, you don't need to provide me any explanations. I know everything – a little birdie told me. Anyway, I am happy for you. I've heard great things of your daughter. Where is she now?"

"She's in New York. With her mother and Elijah. They're visiting her family. Her daughter, my granddaughter, goes to college there. She's studying electrical engineering. Couldn't be more off than the family genes," Klaus smirked. "I'm afraid what she'll turn into. I'm due to visit them next month."

"Well, I'll have you know I minored in microbiology and turned out fine. I'm sure she will too."

They were interrupted by the waiter who brought their order of a plate of beignets and two coffees for them.

"Microbiology? I wouldn't have pegged you to be the kind of person to pursue that subject," Klaus said. "I thought you were a more of an event management type of a person."

Caroline made a face. "I see someone kept tabs on me." Caroline took a beignet from the plate and bit into it. She felt the warm gush of syrup in her mouth.

Klaus shrugged, looking unashamed. "Well, I did when I could. I always did know you'd go in for Event Management."

"This is really good," She said. Klaus handed her a napkin, smiling. "You've got sugar all over your face."

"Thanks," she wiped her face. "Actually, I had actually quit school in between. A lot of stuff happened with Bonnie and Damon disappearing...," Caroline shook her head, "I had to quit college and well, I didn't really think I'd go back..."

"What changed?"

"Well, after my mother passed away - and thank you for the carnations - they were her favourite, kind of creepy that you knew that but I - it was really good to know you hadn't forgotten - It was very thoughtful of you. Anyway, after my mother – passed away – I decided to return to Whitmore and finish my education. And things kind of took on a life of their own and now I have my own event management company. All without any supernatural assistance, I'll have you know."

Klaus laughed at how proud Caroline looked. She looked like a child waiting to be praised and he did not make her wait. "Well, love, I always knew you were meant for great things."

Caroline beamed. "Me too. About me, I mean," she teased. Klaus chuckled.

"And how is the Mystic Falls gang?" he asked.

"I wouldn't really know, I guess. After college, I permanently moved away from the town. It was…I think I couldn't bear it there...There was so much history - there still is. Also, I really needed to wean myself off of them - and the town. It was too intense. Plus, I got offered a scholarship at Whitmore for Postgraduate so I couldn't turn the offer down. I thought it was a sign. From the universe. Egging me on to leave that place," Caroline laughed not an entirely happy laugh.

"How's everyone in your family doing?" Caroline asked. "It sounds so strange, doesn't it? So," She leaned in and whispered, "human."

"Sometimes I almost forget that I am a vampire. I am still so human, you know. My aspirations, my desires. I have never really known anything else but to be human. I wouldn't know how to be a vampire. I mean, you're the Original vampire and yet, you're still so human."

Klaus felt a little taken back at her proclamation. Did she mean to say he was inferior? That he was weak?

"They're all well."

"And awake...?"

Klaus smirked. "Awake enough."

"Where are you staying?"

"Oh, at the hotel near the airport."

"Why don't you stay at my house?"

"Oh, no, I have actually come here to organise an event so I cannot stay anywhere else apart from the one that's been booked for me or there'll be like a huge discrepancy with the budget and then I'd have to answer questions and ugh it's too much effort," Caroline shrugged her shoulders with agitation. Klaus noticed how her voice had changed the tone, pitch and variation. He had been utterly deprived of her delightful company and her idiosyncrasies, he realized.

"What event?"

"Oh, it's not really fancy. It is a collaboration between Whitmore university and NOLA university on event management. I've actually been here since a week. But I had some research work to take care of so I decided to sort that out before I see you."

"Well, I feel special. Shall we leave?"

"For my home. For a drink, you wouldn't mind."

Caroline searched his face for a sign of innuendo or a suggestion that there might lay more than alcohol. She wasn't sure if she was comfortable with that…yet. Not if Klaus wasn't on the same page as hers'.

"Are you done burning holes into my head, love?" Klaus asked, after half a minute of no response from her. Caroline blushed with the realization that Klaus had caught onto her inspection. She cleared her throat.

"Of course," she said, confidently. "Let's go."

"If it's absolutely alright with you," Klaus added again, for good measure.

Caroline couldn't help but snort at that. She hadn't had a guy be that polite and considerate to her in quite some time.

Klaus raised a questioning eyebrow at that. "I forgot how polite and proper you are. Guys in Whitmore are just like - well, never mind what guys there are," Caroline cut herself off with an awkward laugh when she realized it was _Klaus_ she was talking to. He wouldn't want to know about all of that. And it was definitely _not_ what she had come here for.

He smirked. "I would love to know."

XXXXX

"So," Klaus asked, mixing her drink for her. "Are you seeing someone?"

Caroline could feel the tension thicken in the air. She examined the mansion as she considered his question. The Mikaelson mansion was everything she had heard about it. It was beautiful but exceedingly grim. Much like its owner. She was sitting in the parlour with the large settee, watching Klaus make her a drink at his own private bar.

Klaus handed her the drink and sat on the armchair adjacent to the settee. Sufficiently appropriate distance from a lady, Caroline thought and bit back a snigger. She chose to examine her drink. It was a swirling amber and -

"Well?" Klaus asked again.

Caroline looked up from her drink. His question. Oh. "Well," she chewed her lip wondering if she should just tell him, why not? It's Klaus, after all, "Oh well," she said after a while.

"There was someone, but no not anymore."

"And may I ask, who that was?" Klaus asked, carefully, cautiously, like she was a lamb who would run away if he made a sudden movement. Caroline rolled her eyes at his sudden formalities.

"Yes, you may," she said, in an exaggerated fashion. "He was – he was actually my husband," she said, pressing her lips into a thin line waiting for the information to sink in. It took a while. Klaus stared. Or maybe he had frozen. Caroline couldn't decide. She decided to proceed either way.

"Well, his name was Michael and I was married to him for thirty years before he recently passed away."

At the last phrase, Klaus's eyes snapped to hers'. "Yep. He was human," she sighed. "He decided to stay human," she added. "We were very happy. It was -," she paused. What could she say to Klaus? Did he even want to hear this? How could she explain what she had with Michael? How they were together?

"He didn't love you enough to stay forever?"

"He loved me enough to know when to stop."

"Is that love?" Caroline was caught off guard by Klaus's question. He was looking at her with utmost sincerity.

"Y- Yeah, I think so," she said.

"Thirty years," Klaus finally commented.

"I'm actually surprised that you didn't already know I got married," Caroline added after a while.

"Well, I stopped keeping tabs after college. I believed it was time to…move on," he added the last part almost begrudgingly, his eyes fixed on hers'.

"And did you?"

Klaus didn't reply. "Would you like to go on a walk?" he asked, instead.

"Sure."

xxxx

"I still think he was a bloody fool to not choose immortality," Klaus commented. They had been walking silently for almost forty five minutes now when he had broken the silence.

"Do you think he did not love me enough?"

"No, I don't."

"You know," she said, softly, and it was so soft and warm; so understanding that Klaus wondered how much she had grown because – because Caroline that he knew wouldn't taken such a judgement on her person so calmly, she would've ripped him apart; he didn't know if he hated it or admired her for it.

"You know," she continued, "Love is different. Taking the time to learn about someone is also love," she said bending to pluck a flower and tuck it behind her ear. She refused to meet his eyes. Her eyes were searching rapidly for something, in the way they were urgently skimming, the almost dusk enveloped gardens of the Mikaelson land. In the pause that she took, she bent down to pluck a blade of grass. He saw what she had seen: the still alive bubble of dew from morning. She gave him a short smile of acknowledging the miracle, before she continued,

"Learning someone patiently, the way they hold their fork, the way their skin tastes when its oily to when its dry – all of it is love. He – he knew me, Klaus. And he wasn't afraid. He wasn't disgusted. And I knew him. And I wasn't afraid and I wasn't disgusted. To know each other in entirety, or as entirely as one can, and to accept and cherish, despite and –- and _because_ of it - That – is – that's love."

She finally turned to look at him and Klaus felt he was helpless in the face of such a definition. He felt...starved. "Are you hungry?" Klaus asked.

"Yes, thank God you asked, I'm really hungry. But for blood. And O positive is my favourite," She said, taking out a bag of what looked like milk from the cover. "Once, I had to pull an all-nighter and I hadn't had a bite since a day before – and it was hell. The worst was when Mike found me unconscious and gave me hell for like – a month – month! He withheld -," And Caroline cut off immediately to quickly add, "Never mind that. He finally came up with these tetra pack ideas and well, I've been using them ever since," She explained, "I wonder why _I_ never thought of it before. My mom used to do it all of the time and I just done know how I couldn't have done it too. I mean, hello, the answer was right in front of me," She finally took a pause to take a deep breath and rip into the tetra packet to drink the blood.

Klaus who had been listening to her quite nonplussed, burst out laughing, when she had finished. Caroline stared at him confused. "What, what is it?"

"I forget how young you were when I last saw you. You've grown so much. How old are you now? Eighty?"

"Yes, Have I really changed that much?"

" It's a pity, " Klaus said, and then abruptly stopped.

"What is? What's a pity?"

"Just you never ageing. I never saw the point of it.. But now I think I do. There's a thing about being human. There's a thing about you being human that I regret being taken from you. I can imagine you, old, and fussing about discovering the miracles of keeping food in the handbag."

Caroline smiled. "Yeah, I think about it too. Michael and I wanted to have children and we even thought about adopting but... We were scared if our baby would choose the life I had...I would never want someone else to want this life. I know it's unfair but I couldn't bear it. To know someone turned because of me," Caroline said, pursing her lips. She smiled weakly at Klaus.

"But immortality has its perks too," Caroline said the same time Klaus said,

"Why didn't you ever give us a chance?"

Caroline looked at him, surprised at his sudden query. She hadn't been expecting that. He, however, looked determined. Though behind that determination and facade of casualness, Caroline could see insecurity lurking. She looked at the long expanse of grass they were surrounded by. She turned to Klaus.

"I guess," She said slowly, "I was just afraid..."

She glanced at Klaus who did not move at her words. He remained still. She wondered if she should say more. She sighed.

"The thing is," she said, turning towards him, "I chose myself. I mean, after my mom died I - I decided to change everything," She said.

"Before she died, she asked me to do something...she asked me to choose myself. I didn't understand but now I do. I kept, keep," Caroline scoffed, widening her eyes at him, as if incredulous at her own conduct, "trying to buy people's affections through favours and... It's pathetic, really. I just, I couldn't do that anymore. I just wanted to be for me for some time. I didn't want to work so hard to make people want to be with me. And in the process of understanding myself, I found that somewhere, I had begun understanding you..."

"You never worked hard to keep people with you. But you did, or tried to, with me. But I didn't with you... And I realized it was because I had taken your help for granted. And don't get me wrong but it felt good because I knew you would always be there for me... Without me trying to win your affection. I was secure... Although, I don't regret the decision I made, I - I just wanted to come see you and tell you that I finally understand. But I needed to be me too. To completely understand the situation and take control of it - to take a chance. I have done and seen things - I still want to do more. I have friends all over the world - and I am glad I allowed myself to experience this. Sometimes I am so tightly wound that I forget that my life is to live too."

"When you live forever it's hard to not want to be with the people you've always known. Otherwise, who will I be if not me...? I was so scared that I'd not be me anymore. To spend an eternity without the people I had grown up with would mean there would be no one to remember me... Or my past. All of the people who I grew up with are going to die one day, and forget me long before that.. It would then really be as if I was never really there. Who will I be with no one to know me and remember me?" She looked back at him.

"I'm still scared. And I'll never be able to detach myself from them. I - I love them... And I know that they love me. But I realised I didn't need to bargain my life in exchange for acknowledgement... But I'm not scared anymore... I try to _live_ as much as possible rather than as extraordinarily as possible... that's what I've learnt all these years"

"I think it was also perhaps that the first thing you did when you saw me was to inquire if I was alright, if I needed help. As if, after all these years, without word or warning I had the perfect right to show up at your door and demand your assistance in a matter and you would provide me with it without any airs or hesitation. It's just so...weird. To know I can depend on you so ...freely."

"I am not sure what you're trying to say," Klaus said.

"I think you do."

"I do, but I'd rather here it from you. Clearly. Before making any assumptions."

"I am saying," Caroline said, "I'm here. For you. If you'll still have me, that is. Unless, you've moved on. Oh my God, all this time I had been speaking, I mean, yes, that speech, or speeches were long overdue but I never paused to ask where you stand - and oh my god, are you seeing someone? Are you - like? Oh no, I didn't even inquire. Another thing I realized is I am extremely narcissistic, aren't I, because I just waltzed in and like hey I like you let's get to together but what about you, I mean - I am sorry. Just , please, say something."

"I'm sorry, that tirade was far too amusing for me to stop," Klaus said coming close to her. His mouth hovering over hers' but not touching; his eyes bore into hers and found only warmth.

"After so many years," he whispered.

"Time is but a social convention," She smirked softly.

Klaus smirked back before closing the distance. Time was a social convention and it was going to be convention that either of them would not be abiding by for quite some time.


End file.
